There is probably not a more iconic character that Bruce Campbell has played more so than Ash. Today we can celebrate the the 25th Anniversary of Evil Dead 2 with this wave of Evil Dead figures: “Farewell to Arms” Ash and Deadite Ash. Both fall under the NECA Reel Toys brand and continue their excellent reputation of strong sculpts, paints, and likenesses in their movie lines.

So this is Ash and his pal, the Deadite!

With the huge amount of exciting NECA announcements coming out of Toy Fair, it’s nice to start getting some of these into my hands. Evil Dead, and especially Ash have always been one of my weak spots in collecting. If it looks good and is from the property I will more than likely purchase it. Palisades used to have a pretty cool four inch line that while looking good, had a lot of breakage problems. I don’t think I ever grabbed the McFarlane Army of Darkness figures, but the NECA Army of Darkness Ash is one of my all time favorite figures.

Like most NECA movie figures Ash is in 7 inch scale. “Farewell to Arms” Ash comes with a shotgun, severed demonic hand, axe, and an alternate arm that attaches at the elbow. He has a surprising amount of articulation and can get into some pretty good poses. I think the best part of all the leg articulation is that I can have him ride Swiftwind. I really feel like Ash riding a rainbow unicorn makes everything right with the world.

Deadite Ash comes with Linda’s severed head, the Necronomicon book, and a tape deck. I feel Deadite Ash has the stronger of the two heads, not so much because of the sculpt but more in the paint. Regular Ash’s head had a fantastic sculpt, but feels just a bit too cartoony due to the black lining around the eyes. I see what they were going for with the lining of the eyes to bring out the Bruce Campbell features … I just don’t think it worked out as well as the hand painted prototype. That’s not to say Ash’s head is bad, because it is not, if you get too up close to Ash he does start to look more like a cartoon due to the lines. Deadite Ash has the sunken eyes so there is no black lining around anything on his face, giving it a more natural look.

For movie figures it is pretty amazing the amount of articulation NECA put into these guys. They pretty much use the same bodies so you are getting the same scheme with each one including cuts at the boots, knees, upper thigh, crotch, waist, neck, shoulder balls, elbows, and wrists. The amount of leg cuts also help to get them into some pretty interesting poses if you so wish to be adventurous with them.

Ash and his Deadite friend will run you anywhere from $15 – $20 depending on the venue. These are starting to show up at Toys R Us in the collector isles for about $15. You can also grab them from most online retailers, I picked mine up from Bigbadtoystore and they shipped them to me quickly and they arrived in great shape!

You will not be disappointed with the latest Evil Dead figures. You can tell from the attention to detail the people over at NECA love the movies and put a lot of fun references to the film in with these figures. As prices continue to trend up and quality suffer it’s nice to see a company such as NECA who really has a love for their properties try to give their customers something special.